"Where have all the workers gone?" David Wessel of the Wall St. Journal wondered about the labor force this week:

“In the past two years, the number of people in the U.S. who are older than 16 (and not in the military or prison) has grown by 5.4 million. The number of people working or looking for work hasn't grown at all.”

So, where have all the workers gone? Have they retired, suspended their labors temporarily, or are they languishing on public assistance? Asks Wessel.

There are some other possibilities. Since the crash of 2008 there’s no question that millions of Americans have indeed stopped looking for a job. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not working. Look around, it’s much more likely that the officially “unemployed” are busy, doing their best to make ends meet in whatever ways they can. Sex-work, drugs and crime spring to mind, but the underground or “shadow” economy includes all sorts of off-the-books toil. From baby-sitting, bartering, mending, kitchen-garden farming, and selling goods in a yard sale, all sorts of people -- from the tamale seller on your corner, to the dancer who teachers yoga – are all contributing to the underground economy along with “employed” who pay them for their wares.

The “underground” is always with us. For better and often for worse, it’s how marginalized populations tend to survive —often not very well. (Think of the old, the young, the formerly incarcerated, or foreign.)

Austrian economist, Friedrich Schneider, an expert in underground economies, has documentd a surge in shadow economy activity in 2009 and ’10 in Europe. University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Edgar Feige has been doing his best to follow what’s happened here.

Tracking the gap between reported and unreported income in the US since 1940, Feige finds:

Measuring unreported data is not easy, but from Feige’s graph one thing is clear: there’s as much unreported income swirling around the US today as there was in WWII under rationing, and that number’s not going down with any speed.

Unreported income matters to the IRS because those “unreported” dollars are lost revenue for the taxman. (In 2001, the Internal Revenue Service estimates it was losing $345 billion in tax revenue. In 2009, according to Feige, that estimate could be approaching $600 billion.)

"Figuring out how many of those now on the job-market sidelines are likely to come back onto the field matters to gauging the current state of the economy, to fashioning the right remedy for the sluggish recovery and to evaluating prospects for economic growth, which hinge, in part, on an expanding labor force."

Getting a more accurate picture of our economy matters for another reason too. For one thing, ever since Adam Smith, we (at least we in the West) have been taught there is one set of rules, and one viable economy: the “end of history” economy of jobs and wages, profits and losses, and round the world trading on the stock market. The reality is, as farmer/science writer Sharon Astyk put it recently, what “the economy” is not the only economy.

“Let us remind ourselves that the informal economy is, in fact, the larger part of the world's total economy. When you add in the domestic and household economy of the world's households, the subsistence economy, the barter economy, the volunteer economy, the "under the table" economy, the criminal economy and a few other smaller players, you get something that adds up to 3/4 of the world's total economic activity. The formal economy - the territory of professional and paid work, of tax statements and GDP - is only 1/4 of the world's total economic activity.”

Looking ahead at our employment and energy future, it’s not at all clear what the economy will look like in years to come. With fewer dirty satanic mills to labor in, regular Joe and Jane workers are going to have find income that doesn’t depend on them transmuting into celebrities or high-rolling mobsters of high finance. What are they going to do? For those who believe that stocks and bonds and 9-5 jobs are the only economy there is, the pictures dire.

For others, there’s a world of possibility ahead. Gar Alperovitz and his colleagues at the Democracy Collaborative are about to launch a series on the upsurge of thinking that’s currently happening about different ways in which people might support themselves and restructure the political and economy. They point to the exploding interest in “new economy” conferences and the array of real-world experiments, from solar-powered businesses to worker-owned cooperatives and state-owned banks.

“History dramatizes the implacable power of the existing institutions—until, somehow, that power gives way to the force of social movements. Most of those in the 'New Economy' movement understand the challenge as both immediate and long term: how to put an end to the most egregious social and economically destructive practices in the near term; how to lay foundations for a possible transformation in the longer term.” Writes Alperovitz in the first of five articles.

Could it be that the old economy is losing its grip, not only on our lives, but also on our ideas? There is much – much – more to come.

WASHINGTON - Hopes by Iran war hawks here to get the U.S. Congress
to wield the threat of a U.S. military attack on the Islamic Republic on
the eve of next week's critical negotiations on Tehran's nuclear
program appear to have fallen unexpectedly short.

While the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday to
reject "any U.S. policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear
weapons-capable Iran", a key co-sponsor of the resolution emphatically
denied that the measure was intended to authorize the use of military
force and asserted that Tehran would have to test a warhead before it
could be considered "nuclear weapons capable".

At the same time, the House leadership was poised to accept an amendment
to the otherwise hawkish 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
that declares explicitly "that nothing in this Act shall be construed
as authorizing the use of force against Iran." The NDAA, as amended, is
expected to clear the House Friday.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Capitol Hill, a tough new sanctions bill
that was supposed to sail through the Senate Thursday was blocked by
some Republicans who said it was insufficiently hawkish.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, one of several influential Republicans who have
long urged Washington to prepare for war with Iran, angrily denounced
the absence of any reference to possible U.S. military action if Iran
fails to abandon its nuclear program.

"These sanctions are great. I hope they will change Iranian behavior.
They haven't yet, and I don't think they ever will," he declared. "I
want more on the table."

The Congressional debate comes less than a week before Iran is scheduled
to meet in Baghdad with the United States and the other members of the
so-called "P5+1" countries - Britain, France, China, Russia, and Germany
- for a second round of talks on the future of its nuclear program.

Both sides were upbeat coming out of the first round of talks in
Istanbul last month. And subsequent contacts, notably between the deputy
Iranian negotiator, Ali Bagheri, and his counterpart from the European
Union, Helga Schmid, have reportedly encouraged all parties that some
important confidence-building measures could be agreed, at least in
principle, in Baghdad.

Moreover, the defeat of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose
government reportedly was the most antagonistic toward Iran of the P5+1,
in this month's elections and his replacement with Francois Hollande,
who immediately sent former prime minister Michel Rochard to Tehran, has
bolstered hopes that progress can be made when negotiations resume May
23.

Specifically, U.S. diplomats hope that Iran will agree to some portion
of a "menu" of steps it can take to build confidence, the most ambitious
of which would be to freeze its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent and
ship out its existing stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium in
return for fuel rods that can be used for its Tehran Research Reactor
(TRR).

Washington also hopes Tehran would agree to suspend operations or close
its Fordow enrichment facility which is buried under a mountain near
Qom, and ratify the Additional Protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
That would permit much more-intrusive monitoring by inspectors from the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of Iran's nuclear facilities
or other facilities, such as the Parchim military base, where some
Western intelligence agencies suspect nuclear-related work may be taking
place.

Among the range of carrots that may be offered are formal recognition
that Iran has the right to continue uranium enrichment up to five
percent; a cap or delay on any further sanctions - some of which the EU
is scheduled to impose next month - on its increasingly distressed
economy; and the easing or eventual lifting of some sanctions.

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has
repeatedly threatened to unilaterally attack Iran's nuclear facilities,
has long expressed strong reservations about any negotiations with
Tehran that would permit it to continue any enrichment.

In an interview with CNN Thursday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is
meeting with top officials here this week, said any deal must require
Tehran to "stop enriching uranium, to 20 percent, or even three to five
percent, and to take all the enriched uranium out of the country."
Virtually all Iran experts here, however, believe that Tehran will never
agree to stop all enrichment.

Nonetheless, Israel enjoys considerable influence in Washington through
powerful lobby groups, most importantly the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which appears to have pushed hard for Congress
to take up the pending legislation this week in advance of the Baghdad
talks.

Over the past six years, AIPAC has played a central role in pushing
lawmakers to increase military aid to Israel, impose ever-tougher
sanctions against Iran, and, most recently, wield the threat of U.S.
military action.

The latter was precisely the original intent of the House resolution
approved by a margin of 401-11 Thursday. Not only did the resolution
reject any future containment policy toward a "nuclear weapons- capable
Iran; but it also declared it a "vital national interest" - code for
justifying military action - "to prevent the Government of Iran from
acquiring a nuclear weapons capability".

Such a stance is distinctly more hawkish than that of the Obama
administration which has made a distinction between nuclear weapons
capability - a status which many experts believe Iran has already
attained - and actual possession of a nuclear weapon.

Unlike the Israeli government, the Obama administration has indicated
that it will consider military action only if Iran actually develops a
bomb, a much higher threshold than a "capability".

In any event, the resolution approved Thursday failed to define
"capability", leaving it to its chief Democratic co-sponsor and the
ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard
Berman, to fill the gap, which, to the surprise of many close observers,
he did in a way that actually raised the threshold for military action
higher than the administration's.

"Nuclear weapons capability? (It takes) three elements defined by the
Director of National Intelligence: fissile material production, one;
design weaponization and testing of a warhead, two; and a delivery
vehicle," he said, speaking from prepared notes during debate on the
measure Tuesday. "To be nuclear capable, you have to master all three
elements."

"While Iran has a delivery system, they have not yet mastered – but they
are making progress on – steps one and two. And if one day, when they
master all the elements, and they kick out the inspectors, and they shut
off the (IAEA's) cameras, I consider them nuclear capable," he said
after repeatedly denying that the measure was meant to authorize
military action.

Calls and emails regarding AIPAC's reaction to Berman's remarks were not
returned, although the organization "applaud(ed)" the resolution's
approval in a release.

Meanwhile, Iran hawks suffered a second setback when the managers of the
NDAA bill accepted a bipartisan amendment stating explicitly that
nothing in the bill "shall be construed as authorizing the use of force
against Iran."

The entire bill, which, among other things, includes provisions calling
for stepped-up military operations and planning in the Gulf area, will
be up for a final vote Friday after a number of amendments, including
one calling for the appointment of a special envoy for Iran, are
considered.

At the same time, another major sanctions bill that would punish foreign
companies that provide Iran with communications or riot- control
technology that could be used to suppress dissent and that urged new
sanctions against foreign insurance companies active in Iran, extend
existing sanctions to all Iranian banks, among other measures, was at
least temporarily derailed by Graham and other Republicans who wanted to
include language alluding to the possible use of military force to
prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons.

The Democratic majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid, had agreed to
incorporate a provision asserting that the bill could not be construed
as a basis for military action at the insistence of Republican Sen. Rand
Paul who had single-handedly stalled passage of the sanctions bill in
March by insisting on the inclusion of such a provision.

The vote came as the House considered a $642 billion defense budget for next year, debating more than 140 amendments to the far-reaching legislation. Final passage of the measure was expected Friday.

Rather than a speedy withdrawal from Afghanistan, the spending blueprint calls for keeping a sizable number of U.S. combat troops in the country. The bill cites significant uncertainty in Afghanistan about U.S. military support and says that to reduce the uncertainty and promote stability the president should "maintain a force of at least 68,000 troops through Dec. 31, 2014, unless fewer forces can achieve United States objectives."

The United States currently has 88,000 troops there. President Barack Obama envisions a final withdrawal of U.S. combat troops in 2014. Earlier this month, he signed an agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the role of America forces in counterterrorism and training of the Afghan military. The president insisted that the U.S. combat role was winding down.

• Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), prohibits the Joint Special Operations Command from conducting drone strikes against targets whose identity is not known or is based solely on patterns of behavior the target (aka "signature" strikes).

• Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), terminates the F-35B aircraft program and would direct the funds authorized for such to procure an additional number of F/A-18E/F aircraft and to deficit reduction.

• Rep. Michael Quigley (D-Ill.), eliminates funds made available for the procurement of the V-22 Osprey aircraft and would direct the funds authorized for such to deficit reduction.

The US House of Representatives this morning endorsed the
policy of indefinite detention without trial of terrorist suspects,
including US citizens seized on American soil, by failing to pass an
amendment that would halt the practice.

The final vote to defeat the amendment -- part of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) -- was 182 - 237.

“Congress today rejected a chance to start to clean up the mess that
it made last year with the NDAA indefinite detention provisions,” said
Christopher Anders, ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel in response to the
vote. “No president should ever have the power to order the military to
imprison civilians located far from any battlefield. By rejecting this
amendment, the House of Representatives failed in their sworn duty to
uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.”

The measure, backed by an odd coalition of liberal Democrats and some
Tea Party-backed Republican conservatives, had sought to ensure that
suspected terrorists detained in the United States be charged with
crimes and tried in federal courts.

The amendment, which went down by a 182-238 vote, was among the most
controversial of 142 amendments under consideration as part of a huge
military spending bill that provides $642.5 billion to the Defense
Department and other related agencies for the coming fiscal year.

Sponsors Adam Smith, the top Democrat in the House Armed Services
Committee, and Republican Justin Amash argued that the rights to a
charge and trial are protected by the US Constitution, even for
non-American terror suspects if they are caught in the United States.

The Smith-Amash amendment aimed to strike a clause in last year’s
Defense Authorization act that allowed for the indefinite detention
without trial.

“Leaving these powers on the books is not only a dangerous threat to
our civil liberties, but also undermines one of our strongest assets in
trying suspected terrorists: (federal) courts and domestic law
enforcement,” Smith and Amash said in an opinion piece in Friday’s
Politico newspaper.

Today’s amendment, introduced by lead sponsors Reps. Adam Smith
(D-Wash.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.), was offered on this year’s NDAA.
It was supported by a broad coalition of groups, which ranged from the
ACLU to the Gun Owners of America to the United Methodist Church.

The vote for the Smith-Amash amendment was bipartisan, with 19 Republican members backing the amendment.

“Congress today rejected a chance to start to clean up the mess that
it made last year with the NDAA indefinite detention provisions,” said
Christopher Anders, ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel. “No president
should ever have the power to order the military to imprison civilians
located far from any battlefield. By rejecting this amendment, the House
of Representatives failed in their sworn duty to uphold the
Constitution and the rule of law.”

The
NOSB is supposed to monitor any synthetic ingredient used in organic
farming or food production, to "assure that it is not a threat to human
health or the environment"; however, as the report reveals, the USDA has
been "stacking" the review panel with agribusiness executives who have
"increasingly facilitated the use of questionable synthetic additives
and even dangerous chemicals in organic foods."

The report charges the USDA with "violations of federal law, ignoring
congressional intent, that has created a climate of regulatory abuse
and corporate exploitation."

In one instance a large Dutch-based multinational conglomerate, Royal
DSM N.V./Martek Biosciences, partnered with the nation's largest dairy
processor, Dean Foods, to approve synthetic additives for use in infant
formula, dairy and other products. The additives derive from genetically
mutated vegetation and are processed with petrochemical solvents; yet,
they were easily passed as 'organic' by the corporate interest stacked
panel.

The report highlights countless instances such as this, stretching over the past three US administrations.

"I wish I was making this up, but one of the newest contractors to
fulfill this review function is The Organic Center, the nonprofit
offshoot of the Organic Trade Association, an agribusiness lobby group,”
said Mark A. Kastel, Codirector of The Cornucopia Institute. "This is
the proverbial fox watching the organic chicken coop."

"We implore consumers not to reject organics because a handful of
corporations have acted recklessly and the USDA has failed to do their
legally mandated job. Organic farmers, and their ethical processing
partners, need your support now more than ever," Kastel added. "And
health conscious families deserve authentic organic food."

The nation's leading organic farming watchdog, The Cornucopia
Institute, is challenging what it calls a "conspiracy" between corporate
agribusiness interests and the USDA that has increasingly facilitated
the use of questionable synthetic additives and even dangerous chemicals
in organic foods. In its new white paper, The Organic Watergate,
Cornucopia details violations of federal law, ignoring congressional
intent, that has created a climate of regulatory abuse and corporate
exploitation. [...]

The Cornucopia report charges the USDA with "stacking" the NOSB with
agribusiness executives that all too often have "sold out" the interests
of organic farmers and consumers.

"The organic community came together and actually asked the
government, in order to maintain a level playing field and organic
integrity, to regulate our industry," said Mark A. Kastel, Codirector of
The Cornucopia Institute. "How many other industries have ever asked
the federal government for tough regulations and enforcement?"

In order to placate concerns of federal involvement in the nascent
organic industry, Congress specifically earmarked the majority of the 15
seats on the NOSB for farmers, consumers, scientists and
environmentalists as a way to balance the power of commercial interests
involved in organic food manufacturing, marketing and retail sales.
[...]

"We have seen the USDA, in the past, appoint an executive from
General Mills, as an example, to a consumer slot on the board. This
gross scoffing at the law Congress passed as a safeguard against
corporate domination needs to end right now," Kastel said. "We expected
better from the Obama administration. Either the USDA will immediately
remediate this problem or we will defend the organic law in federal
court."

Cornucopia’s white paper documents the long-term abuse of
congressional intent, by stacking the board with agribusiness
operatives, an illegal practice that has stretched over the past three
administrations.

Another request in Cornucopia's letter to Secretary Vilsack was to
reform the selection of independent scientists reviewing synthetics in
organics, stating that the industry needs an impartial board and the
board needs truly impartial expert advisors. [...]

The Cornucopia Institute is collecting signed proxies, downloadable
from their website’s home page, asking organic industry stakeholders,
including farmers and consumers, to sign the proxy and join in the
demand that the USDA operate the organic program legally.

“No, if anything they are kind of similar,” Garrett said in an interview last week.

“For environmental cases – are customers going to stop buying the
products of a company that makes plastics or steel because their factory
was out of compliance with the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act?
Customers may not know.”

“It may not hurt the company’s reputation so that it will be the death knell.”

“And we know that there have been companies convicted multiple times, seemingly without significant effect.”

“But the same might be true of foreign bribery. When Siemens was
convicted for bribery around the globe, did that affect whether someone
bought a Siemens coffee maker or not? Probably not. It might cause a
government to have doubts when walking into negotiations for a major
contract.”

“The difference in the way FCPA and environmental cases are handled
just has to do with different divisions at Main Justice that are
handling those cases and how they have developed their own practices
over the years.”

And Garrett is troubled by the wording and details of the deferred and non prosecution agreements.

“The fines are sometimes not particularly impressive at all,” Garrett says. “There are many agreements with no fines.”

“And if the purpose of these agreements is to not necessarily impose
the most severe penalty or fine to a corporation, but to instead trade
off of that to insure compliance, to rehabilitate the company – I’m not
convinced that rehabilitation is being taken seriously enough either.”

“The bargain reflected in these agreements may not be strong enough.
Some of these agreements have pretty detailed terms about what
compliance is supposed to look like going forward, but in plenty of
them, it is quite vague.”

“Some of these agreements impose monitors, but even there, the duties of the monitors are left somewhat vague.”

“And we have no idea what the monitors are doing – or even who the monitors are in many cases.”

“So, it’s pretty hard to tell from the outside whether these agreements are performing or not.”
Do we get access to monitor reports?

“No one has ever seen monitor reports, except for a prologue that was
released in one case, but that was really more of an extended press
release,” he says.

“My understanding is that in most of the cases, the company retains
the monitor. The agreement typically says that the monitor reports are
to remain confidential, that they will be disclosed to prosecutors and
maybe regulators, but to no one else.”

“And there may be portions of those reports dealing with employment matters and the like that shouldn’t be public.”

“But the public should know more about what the companies have done and what has happened.”

“When the deferred prosecution agreement is entered, there is a lot
of detailed information describing the nature of the alleged crimes –
what employers did, what employees did, maybe without naming them –
describing the pattern of criminal behavior, what was the breakdown in
corporate governance that permitted it to happen.”

“And then identifying, sometimes specifically, what needed to be done to repair the company.”
“And you would think that there could be a similar report at the end
of the agreement – maybe not every monitor’s quarterly report – but some
detailed accounting of – this is where things stand now – two or three
years after the agreement was entered into.”

“One of the many ways corporations are not like regular criminal
defendants is that in regular criminal cases, prosecutors and police
have access to some of the best information about what really happened,”
Garrett said.“In violent crimes that I have been looking at, you worry
about Brady violations, you wonder whether prosecutors and police are
doing a good investigation and getting accurate evidence.”

“But it all gets flipped around in these corporate cases, where the
corporation may have the best information about what really happened.
They all have access to e-mails and documents, to any interviews their
own lawyers did investigating it.”

“And the cases can be incredibly complicated with millions and
millions of documents. They are incredibly difficult cases for
prosecutors to bring. If you have conduct that occurred around the
globe, can the FBI really take on the job of sorting through it all or
trying to get a hold of millions of documents distributed around the
globe?”

“Both the corporations and the executives can afford brilliant top lawyers.”

“In regular criminal cases, it is the defendant that may find out
later – what evidence did the police gather? When the police are
investigating the crime scene, there might not even be a defendant who
has a lawyer. There might be a suspect later.”

“It is all reversed in corporate cases. In some ways, you have to
applaud prosecutors for taking more of these on. And you can understand
why they need to negotiate these agreements. Without the cooperation of
the companies, they might not easily get access to those documents and
records to find out what happened.”

“It’s not a surprise that in the hardest cases to bring, in these
antitrust cases where there is a cartel, they need special tools like
the leniency program to crack that nut and encourage defection,
encourage corporation-on-corporation snitching.”

“What you see is that prosecutors are able to bring more and more of
these cases in areas where they can leverage their admittedly sometimes
thin resources to produce more self-reporting and cooperation.”

“How are they supposed to find out about ocean dumping at sea? The
statute has whistleblower provisions to encourage shipmates to come
forward, take pictures on their cell phones and get a share of the
fine.”

“And prosecutors offer companies similar rewards. They can say – we
can offer you significant leniency if you come forward, self-report and
cooperate – give us the documents and help us prosecute individual
employees that committed wrongs.”

“If we really are going to take these difficult cases more seriously, it’s going to be a question of resources.”

“You would think those resources should flow to the prosecutors
working on these cases, since they are, after all, bringing in
significant fines and money.”

“I would like to learn more about the degree to which some of that
can be sent back to the people doing these cases – so they have the
resources to get more agents working on future cases.”

Remember, too, that in the aftermath of 9/11, the war criminals told us this repeatedly. Here’s an example from George W. Bush:

They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a
democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed.
They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech,
our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

We must be strong and we must be decisive. We must stop
the evil ones, so our children and grandchildren can know peace and
security and freedom in the greatest nation on the face of the Earth… We
know we’re one people; we know we’re one country. We’re united from
coast to coast by a determination and a firm resolve to see that right
prevails.

Remember, too, that this freedom, inspiring all that hatred, is enshrined in the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably
to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances.

Remember that the words “freedom” and “evil ones” also are enshrined in the language of corporate media “stars” and politicians.

The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform
has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled
democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this
burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of
enlightened self-interest — because we seek a better future for our
children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be
better if others’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and
prosperity.

There’s the word “freedom” again. But in this paragraph, it refers to
providing liberty to those whose countries we invade and occupy because
we “seek” whatever (?) good transpires from granting “freedom and
prosperity” to others.

Now, make note that the United States has departments and legislation
to protect freedom to prevent the evil ones from inflicting harm.
Here’s a list:

And think about the NATO Summit in Chicago—May 20th and 21st. But first read an article by John LaForge for a stomach-lurching look at NATO’s “mission accomplishments”.

I just took a break from writing this, checked my mail, and read the following from Free Press:

Whether you’re a credentialed journalist, a protester or a
bystander with a smartphone, you are guaranteed freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly and freedom of access to information. Your right
to document public events must also be protected.

Unfortunately, not everyone sees it this way. Conflicts are
escalating between those trying to bear witness on one side and local
police and government officials on the other. All too often, the
First Amendment is caught in the middle.

As protests and election-year events unfold in 2012, we must
guard these rights and protect the networks that help us voice our
political beliefs. Our First Amendment right to record must extend to
everyone.

But Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has put his official boot
on this prerogative (the freedom for which the evil ones hate us) with
certain ordinances that will remain in force after the summit:

Authorization for the Mayor to purchase and deploy surveillance cameras throughout the city, without any type of oversight.

Restrictions on public activity, including amplified sound and morning gatherings.

Restrictions on parades, including the requirement to purchase an
insurance policy worth $1 million and to register every sign or banner
that will be held by more than one person.

The power to deputize many different types of law enforcement personnel other than the Chicago Police Department.

After 9/11, fear and loss-of-liberty threats became a perfect petri
dish for the corporatocracy and a miasma of secrecy, surveillance,
intimidation, punitive measures, and endless war.

Pay close attention to the “Police Forces” section in the Wikipedia
piece. Along with this and all of the above, the truth about this
freedom-hating propaganda strobe lights the impoverishment of loss. So
many of the hallowed freedoms have been eliminated by the real
enemies—Wall Street criminals and their puppets who reside in US
government positions of “leadership.”

If “they” attacked us only because they hated our freedoms, there’s nothing to hate anymore.

In March 2010 Andrew Haldane, Executive Director for Financial
Stability at the Bank of England, estimated that the financial crisis
that began in 2008 will ultimately cost the world economy between $60
trillion and $200 trillion in lost production (link).
The methods he used to reach his conclusions require a number of
assumptions, but so would any effort at assessing the broader damage.
And to his point, counting the cost of bank crises in terms of costs to
the banks alone substantially misrepresents the economic harm that
recurrent crises cause.

When J.P. Morgan announced last week that it had lost $2 billion from
derivatives transactions gone awry, later revised to $3 billion and
rising, the mainstream press reiterated the framing that this is a cost
to be borne by the bank and that it indicates what the rest of us might
be expected to contribute if another banking crisis erupts. The
implication is that future crises are possible, ignoring that we are
collectively still paying for the last crisis. And again, to Mr.
Haldane’s point, the costs to Wall Street are nearly irrelevant when
considering the total costs of banking crises.

This all proceeds from the premise that the broader economic order,
of which the banks are a part, is a viable form of economic
organization. Given that the current order is radically environmentally
unsustainable, it is tempting to imagine that the lost production that
Mr. Haldane is counting as a cost of the financial crisis has a silver
lining in slowed environmental degradation. Additionally, any careful
look at the business of banking finds degrees of predation inversely
related to social power—even when they aren’t blowing themselves up,
most of the world would be better off without predator banks.

This establishes a paradox—the existing economic (and political)
order isn’t working. But, as political leaders on the right and what
passes for the left these days claim, failing to sustain it would entail
massive human costs in terms of unemployment, bankruptcy, poverty,
divorce, suicide and the dissolution of our public institutions.
Ironically, add increasing environmental destruction to this list and it
well describes current conditions under the existing order.

Apparently
the best that defenders can offer is that things could be a lot worse.

To point to the obvious, even Mr. Haldane’s lower cost estimate of
$60 trillion isn’t being borne by the banks. The banks couldn’t pay this
if they were forced to—it is more money than they will collectively
earn in profits over coming decades. And it isn’t being borne by the
large corporations that are earning the highest rate of profits in
history. It is in fact a negative, an unmet promise made to the rest of
us by the proponents of capitalism over recent decades. Through the
prism of social struggle it appears as an absence, not as a more
straightforwardly actionable misappropriation. But then, what is the
ultimate difference?

Jamie Dimon, J.P. Morgan’s CEO, offered that the bank’s loss
reflected a failure of risk models. But the bank’s risk models are
necessarily narrowly delineated—what model could propose that
transactions that could cost the broader economy $60 trillion if they go
wrong balance out in favor of the transactions? Such risk models carry
the implicit premise of heads, the banks win; tails, the rest of us
lose. Practically speaking, these trades, when they work, are simply a
method of converting a rigged game into cash. The assets being traded,
reportedly a basket of credit default swaps, are un-funded insurance
policies; accounting fictions that when aggregated guarantee
bailouts—every bank requires that every other bank meet its obligations
or the whole system collapses.

For all of the money that the banks have been allowed to create and
pay out to the purported rocket scientists who build their risk models,
the particular model under discussion in J.P. Morgan’s case (VAR,
value-at-risk) is a work of rare idiocy. The question that it attempts
to answer is: how badly can things go for one day, week, month etc.
assuming (1) no other banks run into similar problems and (2) everything
goes back to normal in the next period. What makes use of this model so
questionable is that both of these assumptions are behind every
spectacular financial collapse in modern history that didn’t involve
outright theft (e.g. Ponzi schemes).

Ultimately the particulars of J.P. Morgan’s losses are so much noise.
What they point to is an economic system designed to self-destruct. Add
increasing environmental degradation in the face of global warming to
structural financial fragility and what capitalism appears to have
created is a full-blown suicide machine. And to invert Mr. Haldane’s
premise—the $60 trillion in lost production (minimum) was never going to
go to us anyway. The trajectory since the 1970s had it going to
corporate executives, bankers and machines (automation).

The challenge for reformers and re-regulators is that the system is
the problem.

Companies pollute because they individually prosper while
we collectively pay the costs. Banks take risks that are internally
rational while they are systemically catastrophic. Environmental and
financial crises cannot be solved with capitalism intact. In fact, when
global warming and bank crises are considered, there is little evidence
that capitalism ever produced any profits net of externalized
costs. And the consolidation of wealth that capitalism produces
undermines all attempts at remediation. Capitalism itself is a suicide
machine.

What made J.P. Morgan’s loss news is the recognition that the
financial crisis hasn’t been resolved. And again, this crisis isn’t from
without. It is endemic to the system we are being told we must save. As
Mr. Haldane has it, even if the crisis had been resolved, we would
still collectively be out more than $60 trillion anyway. And the only
way toward those trillions is through increasing environmental
catastrophe. By appearances, the current order is in the process of
imploding of its own weight. And while dislocations create fear, they
also create openings for other possible futures.

The Great Recession is the worst
economic crisis since the Great Depression and, like the aftermath of
Katrina, or the BP calamity, or the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan,
is a man-made disaster. Many signs point to worse tidings. Many of us
who live in this the most advanced capitalist country are indoctrinated
at an early age to believe our system is by far the most efficient and
best ever created, especially if we are affluent and live well. We tend
to believe it obeyed the laws of evolution toward ever higher form, more
or less as we imagine the human species itself. We go to lengths to
ignore the fact that our system began as the brainchild of a minority
that imposed its will by brute force against others who had good reason
to oppose it. It is impossible to separate our republican form of
government from our economic system. As former Secretary of State John
Hay put matters as far back as the 19th Century: “This is a
government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer.
It is government of corporations by corporations.” It has been the case
since the American Revolution, and remains the case, that the American
government has been owned and operated by the financial and corporate
elites and government policies, and most definitely foreign policy, are
largely their agendas set out for their interests.Bankers and immense
industrial corporations largely run the global show, backed by the
Executive, Congress and the Supreme Court, America’s gargantuan military
power and the connivance of corporate media.

As a culture we deliberately ignore the brutal genesis of American
capitalism, feeding ourselves Disney fantasies about religious freedom
etc. The origin of the modern American corporation is to be found in the
Plymouth and Virginia companies. Childish mythologies aside, these were
established as profit-making entities and to make their claim upon the
so-called New World these new enterprises required systematic plunder of
lands and resources from natives, and their virtual annihilation in the
original colonies, ethnic cleansing, cheap white labor in the form of
indentured servitude, and ultimately the importation of African slaves.
The American capitalist system was therefore premised at its outset by
murder and de facto aggression, and human bondage, the very sins for
which we condemn others today. Many of our early American heroes were
slaveholders and war mongers par excellence.

Some of us are old enough to remember when we condemned the
communists for their “slave societies,” believing that our own slavery
was somehow an aberration instead of the absolute prerequisite to
establish today’s American way of life. Our system’s continued success
still requires these critical factors. We still have slaves but now we
don’t have to see them. They toil on plantations, mines and factories
hidden away in far continents, victims of centuries of western plunder,
today camouflaged as “globalism.” We employ terms like
“neo-colonialism” but pretend this term does not apply to us. What else
was Cuba before Castro but an American satrapy? What else South Vietnam,
South Korea, Dominican Republic, Iran before 1979, Philippines,
Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and many others? Why else has the US
invaded Iraq and Afghanistan but to try to secure the world’s remaining
second largest deposit of oil and to acquire oil and natural gas from
Central Asia in the very backyards of our rivals China and Russia? As
Edward Said asked, “if the principal product of Iraq were broccoli would
the U.S. be in Iraq?”

Victims of our wars are dismissed under the Orwellian rubric of
“collateral damage” committed accidently in the “fog of war.” While our
government now goes to some lengths to ensure that the worst of such
crimes are committed by proxies wherever possible, when all else fails
we send in our own armed forces. As reports from Iraq and now
Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia show daily, our pilotless
predators wreak a terrible slaughter on civilians. Our Army and Marine
Corps do not exist to protect and defend our shores but to enter other
nations and force them to our will.

We Americans hide from such uncomfortable facts largely by ignoring
them, believing the lies we are told, or by fantasizing that we are a
new chosen people, or the redeemers of a benighted world. We have
constructed a mass delusion that our way of life represents the most
advanced civilization in human existence despite the fact that its
perpetuation has required the deaths quite literally of many millions as
it took shape, the wholesale violation of the very values we claim, and
the destruction of the very resources and environment that made the
“American way of life” possible in the first place.

Any trust in this system is really a kind of fundamentalism; many
want to believe that all of this was ordered on high, perhaps encoded in
our genes at the very dawn of humanity, its inevitability impressed in
the Book of Time.

As in all fundamentalist faiths we have created a set of myths about
why we go to war and these myths center on the falsehood that we do so
to protect and defend noble values, and principles, and our superior way
of life; never for the reasons others wage war, such as lebensraum,
or to seize resources, or to prevent others from exercising their
‘right’ to self-determination should that impede our “interests.”

In American public culture enemies have always been presented as
aggressors against an intrinsically peace loving people who take up the
sword only, ONLY, because our antagonists have left us no alternative.
Thus, it is always the other who bears the opprobrium for anything the
US has done in the name of national “defense.” Think, say, of the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the carpet bombing of South
Vietnam, or the more recent destruction of Fallujah where white
phosphorus, a chemical banned under international law, and depleted
uranium was used on civilians to awful effect causing a plague of
cancers. All of these were brought on by the iniquities of our enemies, or so we claim…

Yet not a single war in American history has at bottom NOT been one
of choice. And we never go to war against any nation capable of wreaking
havoc on us. No, we ravage only those who lie helpless before us. The
American way of war has been hailed culturally as “exceptional” and
humane and just and necessary for the defense of profound human values
and ideals, and thus a model for the rest of humanity…but the truth
stands naked in the neo-colonies.

This has been especially true since the US assumed ownership of the
Western capitalist system in 1945 and has used armed violence against
many nations, either overtly or covertly, to expand it to the entire
world, thereby building new roads so to speak, all leading to our New
Rome.

In these almost innumerable wars, interventions, covert ops,
assassinations etc. since the end of World War II the US has killed
millions in places too numerous to list here, all of course in the name
of progress and humanity.

The American empire that most Americans are persuaded does NOT exist
began as an outpost of British imperialism, and now occupies the
dominant position among the nations of our planet. One of the American
goals of WWII was to knock Britain from its perch… to play Rome to
Britain’s Athens as it were. Today American armed forces are in at least
170 of the 192 nations comprising the United Nations, and American
ships, aircraft and satellites are deployed to every corner of the
terrasphere, stratosphere,
ionosphere, and outer space. The reach of American empire is a quantum
leap in power beyond anything ever seen on planet earth.

Empire by definition is one core nation living at the expense of many
others. Clearly, in terms of the distribution of wealth and resources,
mal-distributed as they are domestically, most roads today lead to the
United States. Yet a “perfect storm” of merging crises is gathering
force that has every possibility to undo the American imperial project
and, indeed, prove catastrophic for human civilization across the globe.

Empire, and the American neo-empire today, has always relied at
bottom on armed force and that in turn has always been dependent on
advantages in the technology of war. Since at least the turn of the 19th
Century, when the emergence of modern capitalism fostered the
Industrial Revolution, military and economic advantage has required
access to ever greater quantities of energy. To a significant extent
both World Wars were global imperial competitions for the control of
oil. Until 1945 the US was self-sufficient in energy but used so much
petroleum supplying its war machine and those of the United Kingdom and
Soviet Union, that in order to maintain our enormously bloated way of
life we became dependent on oil in other nations.

Since then the
American armed juggernaut has been deployed often, if not primarily, to
protect access to petroleum in other people’s countries, to fuel our
army, navy and air force, to safeguard the trading routes and shipping
lanes to transport the black gold, all for the benefit of American
living standards.

Our swollen way life is inconceivable without oil, and other
hydrocarbons. Yet, the absolute reliance on the substances is slowly but
indisputably poisoning and suffocating the very systems they enabled to
arise, and the day draws near when the Age of Oil will end because of
declining reserves and increasing costs.

Consider Peak Oil. A concerned geologist at Columbia named Hubbert
began to worry about how long oil would last and he predicted that
American production would peak about 1973. He was correct. Since 1859
the US has used half of its oil and now the other half will be consumed
in the next 50 years, though it will undoubtedly be so expensive well
before that many will have to choose between heat and food. He also
predicted global oil production to peak about now and most analysts
agree that his prediction is correct.

Americans have always relied upon ingenuity and technological fixes
to solve problems but in this case the likelihood that hydrogen,
biofuels, solar or cold fusion will ever replace petroleum and natural
gas is slim. The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal but reverting to that
fuel will entail other collateral damage. Some, like James Lovelock,
argue that nuclear power could save the advanced nations from total
collapse but opposition to that is widespread especially after the
events in Japan last spring.

Thus, intensifying competition for access to fossil energy reserves
is inexorably leading to increasing armed conflict, and, ironically, the
armies in conflict will not be capable of combat without the very
energy they are fighting to protect, thereby hastening the disappearance
of this energy source, and therefore exacerbating the very problems
that in truth cannot be resolved by war. A case in point is the fact
that American and NATO forces in Afghanistan now consume a million
gallons of fuel per day!

The release of carbon and other byproducts of burning coal, oil, and
gas has altered the world’s ocean and atmospheric systems, while the
industrial processes have also ravaged landscapes, rivers, overturned
settled ways of life, and polluted cities. The net result is
increasingly catastrophic climate change, just as climate scientists
have predicted, leading to intensifying social problems like drought,
floods, famine, increased disease, and the mass migration of
populations. All of these are sure to lead, in turn, to more armed
violence globally, and will unless a massive shift in consciousness
takes place with an equal commitment to change.

While there are numerous Cassandra voices prophesying these outcomes
the real issue before us is whether we have the will to see and take the
necessary action before it is too late.
President Obama was elected primarily on the basis of his promise to
end the war in Iraq. Is anyone fooled by his withdrawal that is not a
withdrawal? And what of the uncounted but very numerous cohorts of
“contractors,” like Blackwater/Xe, many of whom are highly paid former
Special Forces operatives with “trigger time” who will employ their
martial skills while remaining in Iraq? These privatized troops cost far
more than the pay scale for regular troops.

For what other purpose will
these mercenaries remain than to ensure that this long coveted, yet
incipient neo-colony remains in the American orbit and provides its only
natural resource?
One of the first measures undertaken by the Bush Administration was
to create a National Energy Policy Development Group headed by the chief
spokesman of the oil industry, one Richard Cheney. No access to their
records or discussions has ever been allowed but their actions surely
indicate that the energy chief executives are mightily aware of Peak
Oil. Their policy? Not conservation; no crash program of alternative
energy sources, no commitment to work with the international community
for peaceful solution. NO! The policy is clearly to invade other
countries and seize their energy reserves and/or the means to transport
them. For all President Obama’s rhetoric there really is no Plan B.

The U.S.-NATO induced civil war in Libya has been won by rebels
opposed to the ousted and now departed Gaddaffi. The rationale provided
by the United Nations and Obama was that a “no fly zone’ was necessary
to prevent the slaughter of Libyan civilians and that would be the limit
of American intervention. The 7-month long bombardment of Libya’s
cities resulted in a massive humanitarian catastrophe, the very outcome
the intervention was supposed to prevent.

It is clear that even before this intervention was announced to the
public the U.S already had CIA and Special Forces operatives on the
ground in Eastern Libya. The intelligence analysis institute STRATFOR published
a map of foreign oil concessions in Libya. The vast bulk are in Eastern
Libya, now liberated from Gaddaffi’s grasp and soon to be made more
profitably available to Western energy conglomerates. As South Carolina
Senator Lindsay Graham put it nakedly “Let’s get in on the ground.
There is a lot of money to be made in the future in Libya. Lot of oil to
be produced. Let’s get on the ground and help the Libyan people
establish a democracy and a functioning economy based on free market
principles.” The “humanitarian” pretext stands naked in its
hypocrisy. No such intervention has been deemed necessary in Bahrain or
Yemen, or conspicuously, Saudi Arabia where repressive governments have
killed numerous civilians demonstrating against those governments for
the obvious reasons that these countries’ dictatorships cooperate with
the American agenda in the region.

President Obama was elected on the strength of his opposition to the
War in Iraq and his promise to end it. Yet in his recent speech
declaring the Iraq War at an end he asserted that the original purpose
was to disarm terrorists, the false claim made by his predecessor. Thus
Obama has adopted the very narrative of the Bush deceptions. Bear in
mind that Obama has always been in the camp of that section of the elite
who saw the invasion as a blow to a very specific international order
that would weaken the American position and overall agenda in the world.

Read his speeches made as a senator before his candidacy. He feared the
real American agenda to keep consuming the lion’s share of vital global
resources was endangered by Bush’s cowboy tactics, and could lead to
conflict with people who could do real damage, like Russia and China.
His actions as president show he is not morally opposed to bombing and
killing barefoot civilians who employ donkeys or camels as their mode of
transport. That has continued unabated at his command. He claims to
lose sleep over the deaths of American troops. At first he said that he
was serious about withdrawing from Afghanistan in July of 2011. Then the
date has been moved up to 2014, now it is 2024. At best Obama seems the
captive of the real government behind the scenes.

If you’ve never heard of Col. Fletcher Prouty that would not be an
accident. He testified before the United States Senate Select Committee
to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence
Activities, otherwise known as the Church Committee during the mid-1970s
that revealed, among other things, the CIA’s assassination squads and
its secret alliance with the Mafia. He blew minds with his description
of the Secret Government behind the scenes. Prouty was a distinguished
career military officer who in the last third of his career was deeply
involved in the so-called intelligence community. He was go-between for
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the CIA,
and he reminds us that the CIA emerged directly from Wall Street at its
birth in 1947. Prouty was a consummate insider who spilled the beans.
At the time his remarkable book The Secret Team was deep-sixed
by the very secret team he revealed. It has recently been re-published
by a small press and is available. Read it and learn how our
government’s foreign policy is really shaped and by whom and for what.
As Prouty shows, this intelligence, military, and “national security”
network is really a combine of those entities known popularly as High
Finance, the Military Industrial Complex, and Big Media.

Prouty emphasizes that this secret government behind the scenes is not
a tiny cabal comprised of the Illuminati or Tri-lateral Commission or
Bilderbergers, or Council on Foreign Relations though they do play
roles. Rather, each faction of the Financial-Military-Industrial-
Intelligence-Congressional-Media Complex has self-interests, large-scale
benefits, and its future existence to protect. No one is initiated into
these agencies unless vetted very carefully, and that would be
especially true of party nominations for president. While disputes arise
between factions and can be intense, on rock bottom interests, like
access to energy reserves and control of resources and markets, and on
maintaining the dollar as the world reserve currency, each collaborates
with the others in symbiotic and synergistic relationships. The clearest
example is the war (Iraq and Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Iran, Somalia,
Yemen, Libya and Venezuela are essentially the same war!). Virtually all
factions of the Secret Government support it, if for somewhat different
reasons.

An example is the recent revelation that the Federal Reserve Bank printed
40 billion dollars and sent it to Iraq in 2003 where most of it
promptly disappeared. This action clearly indicates that the nation’s
chief bankers were part of the broad conspiracy among the
behind-the-scene elites to invade Iraq, for conspiracy it was since Iraq
had nothing to do with the events of 9-11, as the Bush Administration
claimed. Masquerading as a government agency the Fed is really the nerve
center of a consortium of the nation’s largest and most important
banks. Fed officials acted in secrecy as always. Why they acted as they
did should be thoroughly analyzed and revealed.

This Secret Team has certainly never served the people, though it
claims to do so as our national defense team (against enemies it
creates!). For at least the last century its members have come to
believe the president is its servant and most definitely not the other
way around. As even ultra-conservative spokesman George Will said
publically on a Sunday talk show: America has always been ruled by its
aristocracy. It has never been about democracy but about which section
of the elite will rule at any given time. Or as Noam Chomsky avers:
There is only one political party, the Corporate party, with two
separate wings.

Of course this Secret Government’s chieftains, no matter their past
history, believe themselves to be omniscient and infallible. To take
just the current crisis, the CIA itself fostered the rise of Islamic
extremism during the Cold War because it believed this force would
obstruct communism and prevent Arab and Muslim nationalism from
achieving independence of western control, especially over oil. The CIA
actually fostered Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran as the strategic answer to
Iranian communists; as well as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to thwart
Nasserism, or Arab nationalism; and the mujahideen in Afghanistan who
morphed into the Taliban and al Qaeda. As the CIA itself said the
eruption of Islamic militancy in opposition to the hand that fed it was
“Blowback” of the first magnitude. When the Carter Administration
national security chief, and current background adviser to Obama,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, armed the Mujahideen in 1988 in order precisely to
draw in Soviet troops, Brzezinski infamously declared: “That secret
operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the
Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?… I wrote to
President Carter: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its
Vietnam War’…What is more important to the history of the world? The
Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred up Moslems or
the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”

Stirred up Moslems indeed!

President Obama said clearly during his campaign that he would focus
on Afghanistan in order to prevent the return of the Taliban and al
Qaeda, thereby enhance American national security, and ensure that
another 9-11 could never be planned and orchestrated from that country.
We know now of a serious split between al Qaeda and the Taliban prior to
9-11 because of the latter’s fear of American retaliation. We know,
also, that the Taliban have no desire to attack the United States
itself, only those Americans on Afghan soil. American actions are
clearly destabilizing Pakistan, thereby portending a far greater threat
in terms of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. So what is the United States
REALLY seeking to accomplish in Afghanistan? Again, the claim of a
“humane” intent is preposterous. American actions in both Afghanistan
and Pakistan, especially attacks by pilotless drones that kill numerous
civilian by-standers, do more for Al Qaeda’s and the Taliban’s
recruiting than anything done by themselves.

If Bob Woodward’s recent book, Obama’s War, is to be
believed the president desires to withdraw from Afghanistan but is being
thwarted at every turn by the military, the CIA and even Hillary
Clinton. I’m sure that Obama, having been cultivated and financed by
major financial corporations still wishes to gain American access to the
energy reserves of central Asia but the issue is whether that goal will
be utterly compromised by policies based on raw force. It appears that
the devotees of military solution are winning that argument but it is a
doomed prospect and one that is fraught with danger.

When the Red Army finally left Afghanistan in the early 90s that
tragic place descended into civil war while the US washed its bloody
hands and walked away. Even so, as the Taliban came to dominate and as
it committed terrible atrocities like public beheadings, and stonings of
women, the CIA, Enron, and Unocal continued to negotiate with these
extremists for a pipeline to carry oil and natural gas through
Afghanistan to Pakistan and the Indian Ocean. If the Taliban were to
regain power over all of Afghanistan and offer a guarantee for the
pipeline, I’m quite sure the US would crawl right back into bed with
them no matter their brutality with no shame and excuses aplenty for
public consumption, just as was the case in the 1990s. But given the
damage wrought by US armed intervention today a deal with the Taliban is
probably all but impossible, and the US will never be able to impose
its own puppet able to guarantee the original US goal.

The real issue facing the so-called “advanced” nations and now China,
India and the Asian tigers is that cheap oil is running out. Extracting
oil will become ever more difficult and expensive and at some future
point will be so costly that it will cause essentially a collapse
of globalism with real depression here in the US. The fact that oil
commerce is denominated in dollars while the value of the dollar
steadily declines also presages a future in which the dollar may be
toppled as the world currency, thus leading to widespread inflation and
certain critical shortages of basics.

Widespread suffering will be endemic, unless an alternative source of
energy is found able to sustain our way of life. But that is extremely
unlikely. Coal and natural gas can compensate to some degree but since
our luxurious and wasteful way of life is based on oil and since we see
our many profligate luxuries as necessities, the industries that support
them will fail, and that will lead to mass unemployment, cold winters
indoors and the absence of air-conditioning in summer, not to mention
starvation in what we like to think of as the “backward” nations, and
hunger here since our supermarket cornucopia requires hydrocarbon for
fertilizers and pesticides. Miracle cures like bio-fuels and hydrogen
are wishful thinking. Nuclear power could maintain the electrical grid
but the recent meltdown in Japan may make that hope insurmountable
despite Obama’s continuing support for a nuclear renaissance. Green
technologies are unlikely to fill the void on time to avert the falling
economic and political dominoes, if ever.

The US government’s real energy policy up to now has been to support
energy corporations to exploit oil as usual and gain control over such
reservoirs still existing. Congress is the creature of oil and other
hydrocarbon corporations and their financiers…largely to protect their
profit margins, and there is no plan for the day when the Age of Oil
ends with a crash. Again natural gas and coal can maintain some of the
richer nations at a much lower standard of living but this will result
in widespread social upheaval leading to more international tension…not
to mention an intensification of global warming

American foreign policy is premised today on garnering as much
control over shrinking energy resources as possible…and to protect this
access strategically. The various military commands are deployed
primarily for this reason. Note that a new military command with
responsibility for Africa has been created. The opportunity to create
new military bases for AFRICOM is one of the prime reasons the U.S. is
now in Libya. Note the recent incursion of American “advisors’ into
Uganda and Sudan. Nigeria now provides a third of American needs, and
Angola and other smaller nations have reservoirs that are targets for
U.S. control. Obviously our attempt to gain control of the lion’s share
of Middle East oil and especially of oil and natural gas in the Caspian
and Central Asian regions will bring us into serious conflict with those
nations that see these as their back yard – namely China and Russia and
India and Pakistan. Imagine our response if China were to inject
150,000 troops into Mexico, the number two supplier of our domestic
needs, or Venezuela, with the clear intention of siphoning these
reserves to themselves?

Al Qaeda does not constitute an “existential threat” to the US and
most real terrorist threats can be dealt with by police methods as the
last decade has shown. It is well known in Washington but not among the
public that the Taliban told al Qaeda not to attack the US from
Afghanistan before 9-11. The fact that al Qaeda did so created a break
between the two groups. The Afghan Taliban itself cannot threaten the
US, and has never declared any intention to do so. But when Americans
kill Muslims in Muslim lands we do far more to create terrorists than
anything al Qaeda could do on its own. Meanwhile, attacks on Pakistan
have promoted a separate Pakistani Taliban, and that faction has vowed
to wreak vengeance on America, though its capacity to do so remains
limited. The Pakistani Taliban, coupled with American air assaults,
could destabilize Pakistan, and perhaps foster a takeover by Islamic
fundamentalist junior officers. Recall that Pakistan possesses nuclear
weapons.

Meanwhile, the public is frightened and off balance and paying
through the nose for endless deployments. None of this four trillion
dollar war (as Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, and Harvard professor
Linda Bilmes now estimate) has been paid. Our children, and
grandchildren, if they are lucky to have a future worthy of the name,
will spend their working lives paying off these debts at jobs that won’t
reflect degrees in higher education. Meanwhile, the various elements
of the secret team are currently reaping the benefits of deficit
spending and the national debt and they feel sure that eventually the
real price will be paid by those who sacrifice their lives and by
taxpayers forced ever more into bankruptcy, foreclosure and
unemployment.

The current wars will fail to achieve their goals. Premised as they
are on lies they are in fact crimes against the peoples of the region,
crimes intended to take advantage of their weaknesses and
reward American energy and financial corporations and secondarily we
citizens of the empire who insist on maintaining a failing way of life.
It is the same ancient game of beggar our neighbors to advantage
ourselves. In neither Iraq nor Afghanistan will the US achieve control
of shrinking energy reserves for essentially the same reason it could
not control Vietnam, the very war waged upon their peoples ostensibly to
“liberate” them recruits more opponents. Moreover, the attempt to do so
will result ever more tensions with the Muslim world and the other
nations that need energy too.

In other words, the global climate is heating up in more ways than
one. The conditions for another global war are present, and let us not
ignore the fact that the last one was waged with toys compared to the
present.

President Obama has said that he wants to see a “nuclear free Middle
East. That would require the nuclear disarmament of Israel. Yet Obama
goes along with the pretense of all his predecessors and refuses to
acknowledge that Israel has these Weapons of Mass Destruction. If,
indeed Iran is building nuclear weapons why wouldn’t it given the fear
of Israel’s, or of America’s in the Persian Gulf, of Russia’s to the
north, of Pakistan’s to the east? A world in which some nations declare
their entitlement to such horrific weapons is a world in which many
others tremble and come to reason that their only protection lies in
possessing such themselves.

As international tensions rise over
shrinking resources, and the ravages of climate change, the more likely a
hair trigger mentality will arise. Hiroshima was the handwriting on the
wall. As these demonic weapons increase sooner or later they will be
used.

That is, unless the American people force our policies toward sanity,
and come to focus on what our rhetoric has claimed we stand for all
along.

Congressman Barney Frank has stated that the current economic crisis
could be resolved by simply reducing the size and mission of the
military. To be sure, the U.S. could defend itself against any
existential threat with a tenth of our current military budget,. But the
real threats perceived by elites are to their control of resources and
markets. Such a redirection of resources could ameliorate economic
crisis significantly but only for a time. The issue still remains the
energy future, especially depletion and the effects of discharging
hydrocarbon effluents into the atmosphere in the first place, and the
growing likelihood of spreading violence. By all measures the American
government and the public appear intent to hang on to our way of life no
matter the consequences. That way of life is inherently profligate and
unsustainable. We have altered the climate to the extent that ravaging
events like the recent floods in Pakistan, vast forest fires in Russia,
Hurricane Katrina, water shortages, and desertification are mere
warnings. The worse all such conditions become the more social and
political instability with severe danger of armed violence.

Our policies in the future must center on a crash program of
conservation of energy, even if this means draconian limits imposed by
law such as smaller more fuel efficient vehicles, and heating devices,
and restrictions on air-conditioning and banning plastic containers etc.
Both the nuclear power and coal industries are ramping up pressure
since they know that natural gas, which at present provides most
electricity, is also depleting and we need to educate people to be aware
of what will happen without secure electricity. Simultaneously we need a
Manhattan Project “cubed” and focused on alternative energy. Above all
the crying need is for international cooperation in conservation, for
cooperation into research into alternative energy sources, and mutual
disarmament treaties and agreements to avoid conflict over shrinking
resources. The alternative is the worsening probability of a third
global war. Yet at present we have only Plan A: Armed intervention.

Alternatives can occur ONLY if the public awakens to the coming
storm. We cannot depend on the corporate media to educate us; they are
allied with their major clients, not the public, and they are
deliberately withholding bad news for fear of stampeding the stock
markets into panic. We must get the word out ourselves and make it clear
that we will not accept or cooperate with business as usual from
Congress or the presidency. That will have to mean more militancy
throughout this nation than seen since the 1960s, or really even the
1930s. Unfortunately I fear this will require even deeper crisis before
we begin to awaken to the danger ahead.

Bibliography

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq(New Society Publishers, 2003) Following
the U.S. declaration of a “war on terror,” Washington hawks were quick
to label Iraq part of an “axis of evil.” After a tense build-up, in
March 2003 the United States and Britain invaded Iraq, purportedly to
protect Western publics from weapons of mass destruction (WMD). But was
this the real reason, or simply a convenient pretext to veil a covert
agenda? Ahmed shows that economic considerations prompted US-UK to
invade Iraq. The US has become vulnerable to energy shocks with domestic
production unable to cope with increasing demand. This has led to
occasional blackouts in places like California. Prior to Iraq war
America’s oil inventories fell to the lowest level since 1975 with the
country on the verge of drawing oil from ‘Strategic Petroleum Reserve.’
Iraq under Saddam Hussein was becoming what author says a ‘ swing
producer.’ In other words he was turning oil tap on and off whenever
Baghdad felt that such a policy was suiting its interests. Hussein even
contemplated removing Iraqi oil from the market for extended periods of
time which would have sent crude oil prices soaring.

Robert Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam(NY, Metropolitan Books, 2006) In
an effort to thwart the spread of communism, the U.S. has
supported–even organized and funded–Islamic fundamentalist groups, a
policy that has come back to haunt post-cold war geopolitics. Drawing on
archival sources and interviews with policymakers and foreign-service
officials, Dreyfuss traces this ultimately misguided approach from
support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1950s, the Ayatollah
Khomeini in Iran, the ultra-orthodox Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, and
Hamas and Hezbollah to jihads in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden.
Fearful of the appeal of communism, the U.S. saw the rise of a religious
Right as a counterbalance. Despite the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the
declared U.S. war on terrorism in Iraq, Dreyfuss notes continued U.S.
support for Iraq’s Islamic Right. He cites parallels between the
cultural forces that have promoted the religious Right in the U.S and
the Middle East and notes that support from wealthy donors, the
emergence of powerful figures, and politically convenient alliances have
contributed to Middle Eastern hostilities toward the U.S.

William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order(London, Pluto Press, 2004) This
book is a gripping account of the murky world of the international oil
industry and its role in world politics. Scandals about oil are familiar
to most of us. From George W. Bush’s election victory to the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, US politics and oil enjoy a controversially close
relationship. The US economy relies upon the cheap and unlimited supply
of this single fuel. William Engdahl takes the reader through a history
of the oil industry’s grip on the world economy. His revelations are
startling.

Zbigniew BrzezinskiThe Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives(NY, Basic Books, 1998) President
Carter’s former National Security Adviser, and now an informal adviser
to President Obama, bragged that he had drawn the Soviets into their
debacle in Afghanistan: ”What is most important to the
history of the world? Some stirred up Moslems or the liberation of
Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?” As his title
indicates the fate of nations and their peoples are relegated to game
theory. If America is to play the game of geo-strategic chess who are
the pawns?

Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (New Society Publishers, 2005) The
world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within
the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if
industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they
will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the
survival of complex societies. We are entering a new era, as different
from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times… Heinberg
places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how
industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition
to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the twentieth
century and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the
twenty-first century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East,
Central Asia and South America…he also recommends a “managed collapse”
that might make way for a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society
in the future.

Michael Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet (NY, Holt, 2009) Looking at the “new international energy order,” author and journalist Klare (Resource Wars)
finds America’s “sole superpower” status falling to the increasing
influence of “petro-superpowers” like Russia and “Chindia.” Klare
identifies and analyzes the major players as well as the playing field,
positing armed conflict and environmental disaster in the balance.
Currently in the lead is emerging energy superpower Russia, which has
gained “immense geopolitical influence” selling oil and natural gas to
Europe and Asia; the rapidly-developing economies of China and India
follow. Klare also warns of the danger of a new cold-war environment.

James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil etc.(NY, Grove Press, 2005) It
used to be thought that only environmentalists and paranoids warned
about the world running out of oil and the future it could bring:
crashing economies, resource wars, social breakdown, agony at the
pump…Americas dependence on oil is too pervasive to undo
quickly…meanwhile we’ll have our hands full dealing with soaring
temperatures, rising sea levels and mega-droughts brought on by global
climate change. (TheWashington Post).

James Lovelock, The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning (New York, Basic Books, 2010) Presents
evidence of a dire future for our planet. The controversial originator
of Gaia theory (which views Earth as a self-regulating, evolving system
made of organisms, the surface, the ocean and the atmosphere with the
goal always to be as favorable for contemporary life as possible)
proposes an even more inconvenient truth than Al Gore’s. The eminent
91-year-old British scientist challenges the scientific consensus of the
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is too
late to reverse global warming, he says, and we must accept that Earth
is moving inexorably into a long-term “hot state.” Most humans will die
off, and we must prepare havens. He points out that sea levels are
rising significantly faster than models predicted. Lovelock advocates
solar thermal and nuclear power as the best substitutes for burning
fossil fuels, and he suggests emergency global geo-engineering projects
that might cool the planet. But Lovelock also avows today’s ecological
efforts are futile. This is a somber prophecy written with an authority
that cannot be dismissed.

L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (Skyhorse Publishing 2008) A
retired colonel of the U.S. Air Force, served as the chief of special
operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Kennedy years. He
was directly in charge of the global system designed to provide military
support for the clandestine activities of the CIA. Prouty’s CIA exposé,
was first published in the 1970s, but virtually all copies of the book
disappeared upon distribution, purchased en masse by shady “private
buyers.” Certainly Prouty’s amazing allegations—that the U-2 Crisis of
1960 was fixed to sabotage Eisenhower-Khrushchev talks, and that
President Kennedy was assassinated to keep the U.S., and its defense
budget, in Vietnam—cannot have pleased the CIA.

Michael J. Sullivan, American Adventurism Abroad: Invasions, Interventions, and Regime Changes Since 1945 (Wiley Blackwell, 2007).
Traces US foreign policy from the late 1940s through the past six
years of America’s ‘war on terror,’ and examines the impact of its
repeated militaristic meddling into developing nations. Intended as a
reference tool for undergraduates the author estimates that at least 7.1
million human beings have died as a direct result of these U.S.
operations, most of them civilians.